Acts 4:32-35
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.
John 20:19-31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
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A picture came my way earlier this week, one of those incredible shots from National Geographic that captures an entire story in one frame.
It is a picture that is published in this month’s magazine, which is an intentionally-themed edition about issues of race and reconciliation, not just as a pressing topic of our current time, but also as an act of humility and repentance by the magazine itself, for the ways that it has, in its history, contributed to the dehumanization of other cultures and perpetuated racial divides.
The picture I saw this week is of a Rwandan woman, her hair covered by a white scarf, wearing a long animal-print skirt and a pink and blue necklace as she walks through a green forest, gently leading the man next to her, whose eyes are closed, along the path. One arm encircles his waist in a gentle but protective manner; the other arm bends across her body to grasp his hand in what looks like a handshake. Her eyes are open, and she is smiling.
Behind them are a line of similar pairs of walkers, leading one another in a colorful, graceful trust-walk through the wilderness path.
The woman in focus - her name is Maria, and she is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide back in 1994. The man she is leading - his name is Cyrille, and he was a genocide perpetrator.
They are participants in the “Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities” program led by the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding; a program that recognizes the ongoing need for reconciliation in the community. The program, as described by the Karuna Center, “trains survivors and former perpetrators of genocide together, by teaching them about their common experience of psychological trauma—whether it came as a result of surviving mass violence, witnessing it, and/or perpetrating it—and helping participants come together to reconcile and heal.”
The program believes that the act of practicing reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace within a community both strengthens the community and transforms community members into agents of healing and peace in all their relationships, inside and outside of the immediate community.
When Jesus comes to the disciples the first time in today’s gospel, the very first thing he does is to say to them, “Peace be with you.” And then just a few moments later, again he says, “Peace be with you,” and he breathes into them his very Spirit, and tells them, specifically, that they are empowered by this Spirit to do the work of discernment and forgiveness.
The resurrected Jesus comes among the terrified disciples, and instead of demanding that the believe in his resurrection, or instead of encouraging them toward personal faith or devotion, Jesus instead shows them how to live as a resurrected community. He is less concerned with their attitude toward him and much more concerned with their attitudes toward one another. He comes among them to urge them to live out the signs of the kingdom: peace, reconciliation, and forgiveness; this sort of living is what faith in the resurrected savior is all about.
And as the story goes, the disciples are immediately given a chance to practice what Jesus has just asked them to do.
Because the very next thing that happens after Jesus departs from them is that Thomas shows up. Thomas, who is called “the twin;” Thomas, who by tradition is considered to be our twin, the stand-in for all of us in the gospel story. Thomas, for whatever reason, was not with the rest of the disciples when Jesus showed up. And the disciples have a choice. They can close off their community, create a division between those who have seen Jesus and those who have not; they can draw a line between insiders and outsiders, they can get down on Thomas or get angry with him or get impatient with him when he wants to see the wounded Jesus with his own eyes. Or - or! - the disciples can take this opportunity to practice peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, hospitality, and welcome; all the stuff that Jesus just spirited them to do.
After today’s episode in John’s gospel, Jesus will show up again on the beach with the disciples, and he will eat some fish around the campfire with them, and then, Jesus say “walk with me” to Peter, and lead him along the shore to restore him to the community of resurrection, showing him forgiveness and mercy for his denials; Jesus tells Peter that being a reconciled part of the community of resurrection means creating peace and love and tenderness for those who are around him; devoting himself not to physical body of Christ, but to the sheep of Christ’s body that need tending, the lambs that need feeding.
Everybody thinks that today’s story is about Thomas, and that the next story is about Peter, but at their heart, these closing stories in John’s gospel are actually about what it means to be a community of resurrection; what it means to really be Christ’s resurrected body in and for the world.
A community of resurrection is a space of trust and faith where together we generate and practice acts of life. In the beloved community of resurrection, we create space for new beginnings and for ongoing resurrections. We offer security and protection and welcome and hospitality to all; we seek endless peace - the peace that Christ breaks through doors and boundaries to breathe into us. We facilitate reconciliation, we practice forgiveness, we overcome boundaries.
There was a second picture that came my way this week, right after the April snowstorm that many of us were quick to grumble at. It’s a picture I’m sure many of you saw as well, of the Luther College football field, where just a few weeks ago, messages of hate and discrimination had been stomped into the snow. With the fresh snow was now a fresh message stomped out for all to see: a huge heart, inside of it the word “hope” suspended over the word “hate.” The message for the whole community to see was a message of hope overcoming division. And not just that, but a peace sign, too, stomped into the snow. The caption of the snowy picture pointed out that the peace sign, as seen from the Union, would be seen upside-down, and that the upside-down peace sign is actually composed of an ancient Nordic rune that represents life, beginning, and protection, and that the rune inside of the circle means “endless peace.”
Over and against messages of fear and hate, this heart, this hope, this endless peace written in snow for all to see was a recognition that a community seeking life, beginnings, and endless peace is a community where our shared humanity, our shared fears, and our shared wounds bind us together far beyond any other divisions of our own creation. Or, using the image from our Acts 2 reading, in a community of resurrection, we are blessed to hold all things in common, especially our common griefs, hopes, and dreams.
This is why we keep coming back here, week in and week out, right? Not because God has changed a whole lot over the course of each seven days, and not because we need a sanctuary in order to understand something about the Bible or about Jesus. We keep coming back here because it is a community of resurrection, a community distinct from all other communities that we are a part of elsewhere. And if we’re being totally honest, if you are looking for a community to facilitate service opportunities or charitable giving, if you are looking for a community of nice people, if you are looking for a community to eat with or a community that helps you relax or a community that helps you feel good about yourself, well, the church is just one of many places that can be that community for you.
But what is different about this community, the community of faith in this time and place, and in all times and places, is that here, we preach death and resurrection. We are willing to hang out with a wounded Christ because we are all wounded, and we share a meal together each week that puts us in touch with the frank reality of death, and then, we do the surprising and specific work of trusting and living out resurrection, defying all the places in our world that try to tell us that death is the end, or that darkness is inevitable or that hope is childish, naive, or fruitless.
We are a community of resurrection. The holy space between us into which we are gathered by the Spirit is a space where there is room to show love, endless peace, radical forgiveness - and we do this because we trust in Jesus, not to manipulate or coerce others into faith, but instead to offer the world a community of unconditional love and grace, standing as a sign of the kingdom and a symbol of our hope. Because, sure, we might believe the world needs a little Jesus, but I might argue that at this moment in our shared life, the world needs resurrection even more.
Resurrection, which looks like a genocide survivor and a genocide perpetrator speaking frankly about violence and trauma, and then learning to love and trust one another. Resurrection, which looks like being honest about the ways that we have used our race, our class, our politics, or our self-interested to put up walls, and then to humble ourselves as we do the healing work of reconciliation, love, and justice. Resurrection, which looks like holy footsteps in the snow marking a new path of love and peace and healing.
People of God, Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!
Your risen Christ has breathed into you the Spirit, gifted you with companions along this journey of love and grace, and has entrusted to you the work of forgiveness and peace. How will you contribute to this community of resurrection? What messages of hope will you stomp into the snow? To whom will you offer a hand of reconciliation in the wilderness? How will you practice peace in this place, that you might then go into the world to continue to reach across all divides with the power of Christ’s love and life?
We have seen the Lord.
We have received the Spirit.
We are the vision of resurrection that this world so desperately needs.
Go therefore in peace, and in hope, and in reconciliation, to love and to serve the risen Lord.
Thanks be to God.
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